Trip Insurance is a Scam

DW and I were scheduled to depart for a 14 day tour of Egypt on Feb 9th. Naturally with all the chaos in Egypt right now our trip has been cancelled. The first thing I did was call our trip insurance company to see if we would be reimbursed for the cost of the trip. NOPE, “civil unrest” is an exclusion for recovering any losses.

Wow, travel insurance really is a scam. Travel insurance is strongly recommend for trip, but especially so for international trips. No one ever mentions the “exclusions” that are written into these trip insurance policies.

When I discovered that our trip insurance (Access America) wouldn’t cover the cancellation of our trip to Egypt because “civil unrest” isn’t covered, I started looking at other insurance companies. All of them have a list of exclusions that covers just about everything that can ruin a trip.

Here is a partial list of exclusions from the Access America website. Keep in mind that most other trip insurance companies have a list almost exactly like the following:

Civil disorder or unrest
War (declared or undeclared)
Acts of war
Nuclear reaction, radiation, or radioactive contamination
Natural disasters
Epidemic or pandemic
Air, water, or other pollution
Threat of pollutant release
Unlawful acts
Financial default of travel supplier
Terrorist events
Travel bulletins or alerts
Government prohibition or regulations.

Also on the list is pre-existing medical conditions. OK, so if you have diabetes and something happens to you on your trip that is associated with that disease, you’re not covered. If you’ve had a previous heart attack or heart disease and then have a heart related problem on the trip you’re not covered.

Keep in mind that is just a partial list of exclusions. Just those exclusions I’ve listed cover just about everything and anything that can ruin a vacation doesn’t it? Aren’t the events I’ve just listed the things you WANT to be covered for? In other words, travel insurance is a scam and not really worth the paper it’s written on.

Currently flights to Egypt have been cancelled so I can’t even get to Egypt. Surely my trip insurance would cover us now, nope flights were cancelled due to “civil unrest” we’re not covered.

If you plan a trip, a cruise, or vacation where a travel agent tells you it’s important to buy trip insurance, tell them you would like to look at the list of “exclusions” written into the policy. BTW, our policy was 30 pages long. Make an informed decision.

The next time a travel agent tells me it’s important to purchase travel insurance I’ll be laughing raucously in their face.

I do want to add on more thing, Delta Airlines is refunding the total cost of our airline tickets to Egypt. At least they’re honest.

Gee, I dont see the flu on the list, dont you have the flu now?

Ouch! We (6 of us) are going to the Caymans in June. I have never bought trip insurance, but did this time figuring with the whole family going it was more likely something would happen. My biggest concern was medical; someone getting hurt or sick before the trip. The insurance I bought does cover that and the pre-existing clause is waived since I bought it within 15 days of booking.

Having said that, I'm sure they will try to weasle out of paying if it comes to that; insurance companies usually do.

Too bad about your Egypt trip, but I wouldn't go.